This isn't an official new project, since I don't have a venue in mind for this. I just want to get some thoughts down, in case it ever seems worth pursuing. This is probably the most "cultural studies-y" thing I've thought about in some time. [SPOILERS]
Premise
Sophie is a blond girly girl and Agatha is her cynical goth friend. They live in a world where children are kidnapped periodically by the School Master and taken off to the titular School for Good and Evil. Agatha doesn't believe it's real, and doesn't want to go anyway, while Sophie wants desperately to escape her boring life in a small town and become a Princess. On the appointed night, both girls are taken (naturally) but Sophie ends up in the School for Evil and Agatha in the School for Good. Hi-jinks ensue.
Visibility
Unsurprisingly, the book is very concerned with visibility. Princesses (and Princes) are handsome, while Witches (Warlocks, Werewolves, Minions, Henchmen, Etc.) are ugly. One of Sophie's roommates is an albino with only a single eye, and another is morbidly obese. Moreover, most of them are cruel, unclean, unpleasant people, although it's difficult to say why. The adult teachers push the idea that souls are inherently either Good or Bad, but I'm not sure I buy it. Having been an overweight, weird teenager myself, I can imagine some of the Evil students are what they are because of how others have treated them. Also, some of them appear to be related to famous villains - the Sheriff of Nottingham's daughter, for instance. One assumes that family values are transferred.
But anyway. To a large degree, the book buys into what is called sentimental transparency. This is the idea that beautiful people are beautiful inside as well. In sentimental novels, if someone's beauty seems forbidding or sinister, you bet your ass that person will be evil. Anyone who is unattractive or deformed tends to be evil. You can always tell good people from bad people just by looking in these books. Obviously, the same logic is at work here.
Except! The appearance of Sophie and Agatha throws this all out the window (sort of). At first, people are confused by them. And we get glimmers of others "seeing" inside of them. For instance, one teacher greets Agatha with big smiles, "as if she belonged." She discovers later that he is blind, and rumored to be a Seer. In another scene, Sophie's roommates are listening to her insist that she doesn't belong in the Evil school. When one asks why, Sophie tries to explain tactfully, but is quickly goaded into screaming at them, "LOOK AT ME AND LOOK AT YOU." In the silence afterward, roommate Dot says, "Definitely Evil." In their classes, students have this idea, that the visible can be deceiving, reinforced. Several of their "challenges" (I guess these are like quizzes?) involve a teacher transfiguring a Good student and an Evil one into seemingly identical things (two pumpkins, or two trolls, or two princesses) and then asking other students in the class to figure out how to tell Good from Evil under these conditions. It's stressed that this is an important skill.
But then sentimental transparency comes back. But not really. At one point, a teacher says, "It's not what you are, it's what you do." We see this near the end, during the Battle of the Ball, when Sophie tricks the Good students into attacking the Evil students while they are innocently enjoying themselves at a dance. Because "evil attacks and good defends," she argues that the two sides have traded places. Immediately, the appearance of the students' change - Evil students become attractive, while the Good students suffer warts, boils, deformities, mutations, whatever. This seems to undermine the entire idea that souls are inherently anything. We see other flashes of this. Agatha is tricked into thinking she's been madeover into a beauty, and because she acts like one (she's confident, outgoing, smiling), people see that she was never really unattractive. Right before this fake makeover, a teacher asks Agatha if she thinks Beatrix (another Good student) is beautiful. Agatha confesses that she did at first, but not since discovering how unpleasant a person she is.
But even this isn't consistent. Sophie becomes less attractive when she's studying all the time, even though this is virtuous. When she straight up MURDERS The Beast, it doesn't affect her looks at all.
So What?
This matters in part because both girls want desperately, in their own way, to be seen. The entire basis of their friendship is about this. Agatha knows that Sophie is superficial and originally sought Agatha out only because she knew that "good" people befriend the unfortunate. Sophie knows that Agatha is not as cynical and indifferent as she appears. In spite of seeking her out out of charity, Sophie admits that she has come to genuinely enjoy Agatha's company - she can be herself with her, and says that Agatha sees her for who she is. When the book (inevitably) pits them against one another for the favor of a Prince named Tedros, he consistently chooses Agatha in the challenges mentioned above. During these, Sophie is heartbroken, desperate to be seen as the Princess she believes she is. She tries everything she can think of to convince Tedros, classmates, the teachers, that if they just really *looked* at her, they'd see she doesn't belong in Evil. On the other hand, Agatha resents Tedros choosing her, because it clouds how Sophie sees her. Sophie begins to perceive her as a rival, when Agatha wants her to see her as friend who is sincerely trying to do what's best.
Love is Blind
Tedros consistently choosing Agatha is played not just like it's about his ability to see Good from Evil, but as if it's about Love. He chooses Agatha because he's meant to be with her, and she does eventually start to have feelings for him. Before that, though, in about the middle of the book, Tedros and Sophie begin to date, to the horrified fascination of the schools. Tedros insists that their love will prove that Sophie doesn't belong in Evil, and that he'll save her.
Nonetheless, I wouldn't say he loves her, or that she loves him. Sophie isn't willing to risk her life for Tedros, or to tell him the truth. Much of their relationship is based on Agatha having told Sophie what she should tell Tedros - it's all very Cyrano de Bergerac. He's in "love" with Sophie's face and Agatha's words. But he also falls for Sophie because she takes steps to do well in her classes, become popular with both Good and Evil students, etc. When she starts to fail some of her classes, he is immediately angry with her. He acts betrayed, rather than concerned for her. When he begins to recognize his feelings for Agatha, he doesn't act on them until he sees her dressed up for the dance in a Hermione-like transformation. Even then, he questions her behavior, tells her a real Princess would just let him handle things and protect her. This isn't love.
Instead, the grand love affair of the book is between Sophie and Agatha. At the end, when she's given a choice between handsome Tedros and Sophie (who at this point has allowed her anger and rage to turn her into a bald, warty, toothless crone), Agatha chooses Sophie. In spite of having been lied to, backstabbed, and taken for granted, even though she knows Sophie has done Evil things, and suspects her of The Beast's murder, Agatha kisses Sophie, and the two girls vanish together. In spite of knowing that Agatha cares for Tedros, and feeling betrayed and abandoned by her, Sophie still wants and invites Agatha's friendship and love. This will be read by many as lesbianism, and that's fine. It's obviously an available reading. But regardless of their sexuality, I think the bigger point is that they SEE each other, the good and the evil, and they consistently choose one another anyway.
More on this later...
